Seahawks 31 Jaguars 7: Winners and Losers

Hey, a win! Doesn’t it feel good to experience that again?!

Not sure the Seattle Seahawks have played a team that atrocious since the 58-0 win over the Arizona Cardinals in 2012. The Jacksonville Jaguars are a farce and aren’t even hilariously bad. I can take bad if there’s funny bad with it, but they stink, and the Seahawks took advantage of Jacksonville’s ineptitude with an easy 31-7 win.

Let’s get to Winners and Losers! We’re light on losers today, which is always a good thing.

Winners

Geno Smith

Keep in mind that the Jaguars are 32nd in defensive DVOA, but he still played well. He accounted for all of the offensive touchdowns (2 in the air, 1 on the ground) and didn’t make any back-breaking mistakes apart from taking the odd bad sack. Smith was more aggressive with his throws into tight windows and just more decisive in general. The gameplan was also kinder towards giving him some easy completions on early downs and he took advantage of the Jaguars’ porous secondary by spamming throws to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, some of which were absolute dimes. Other than the Saints game, I think Geno played well enough to win against Pittsburgh and in the handful of drives he had vs. the Rams. This must have felt personally sweet for him to get his first win as a starter since 2016, and he didn’t have to do anything in crunch time for a change.

Shane Waldron

I’m being redundant but yeah, much better gameplan and playcalling today. Notice how that first big catch by Tyler Lockett involved play-action? What a concept.

We even saw the pitch-back trick play that the Seahawks used to run under Darrell Bevell, which might have been a semi-trolling of Seattle’s former OC but also something creative to spark an offense that needs all the help it can get without Russell Wilson.

DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett

Metcalf had just 43 yards on his 6 catches but he had the two teeders, including a beauty over Shaquill Griffin that really is the type of play we’ve not seen him regularly make in his young career. We’re at the halfway-ish point of the season and Metcalf already has 8 touchdowns.

Lockett was remarkably efficient. If I told you he would have 12 catches for 142 yards on 13 targets you would assume that Russell Wilson was playing. It’s been a quiet couple of weeks for Lockett but he was money in this one and the Jags had no answers for him.

Travis Homer

Homer had a key 3rd down block on an eventual Smith conversion to Tyler Lockett, once again showing his value as a pass protector. Then he capped off the day with a rare onside kick return touchdown, apparently just the 7th in the last 20 years. It’s also the first non-offensive touchdown Seattle has scored since 2019 and the first special teams TD since 2017. He’s a solid contributor at this point.

Defensive Line

Especially Carlos Dunlap, whom I thought needed to produce against a bad offense. He didn’t get a sack but he was definitely active in the form of two passes defensed and a QB hit, along with some other pressures.

Darrell Taylor had two QB hits and was in Trevor Lawrence’s face all day, and you had everyone from Kerry Hyder Jr to Rasheem Green to Robert Nkemdiche harassing Lawrence in the backfield.

To top it all off, the Seahawks grounded the Jaguars’ rushing attack, although some of that was due to James Robinson exiting early with an injury. A dominant display, and easily their best of the season.

Quandre Diggs

He’s the literal only player on the team with an interception and he has three of them this year. In fact he has Seattle’s last five interceptions dating back to 2020. Pay this man, Seattle. Pay him!

Ryan Neal

After a terrible showing on the touchdown drive against the Saints, Neal had the only sack of Lawrence, could’ve had another on a 4th down throwaway by Lawrence, and continues to show his value as an extra DB in the dime packages. I won’t let the Saints game dissuade me from advocating for more Ryan Neal snaps.

Pete Carroll, analytics guy

This is partially tongue in cheek but they went for it on 4th and goal at the 1, and the conversion meant that the Seahawks were no longer the only team in the NFL without a 4th down conversion this season. Then the second bit is him even saying DVOA.

Jason Myers

Against his former team, Myers scored 7 points. The Jaguars team scored 7 points. He played his old team to a tie and most importantly had a mistake-free day.

Losers

Rashaad Penny

It’s over for him. At least it’s over for him in Seattle. He had 7 carries for 7 yards and that’s with a long carry of 5 yards. Post-injury, he has 26 carries for 58 yards. Fullbacks can do better than that. You cannot convince me that the offensive line’s run-blocking just magically gets worse when he’s on the field. The only thing you could argue is that when he’s in the game teams know it’s a run. We’re at the C.J. Prosise phase of his career where hanging on his few bright moments and wishing that that’s how he’ll be on a regular basis is now a pipe dream. There is no burst. There is little vision or power. That he’s the only reserve running back who doesn’t get involved in special teams either has me wondering if Seattle doesn’t just trade him for a 2023 conditional 7th on Tuesday.

Running backs don’t age well and if you’re not effective and you’re oft-injured I don’t see why he should keep getting chances.

Urban Meyer

I usually don’t put the opposition in the losers section but he is as bad a coach as I figured he would be at an NFL level. The Jaguars were coming off a bye and looked like Bishop Sycamore High School. Not sure he lasts the season and he shouldn’t see a second season. Consider me one who is enjoying his failure right now. He is absolutely clueless and it’s only a matter of time before we see a total quit-job by the players.

The referees

Not that they had any major impact on the game when it’s 31-7, but I wasn’t really a fan of either roughing the passer penalty against the Jaguars. On the flip side, Jacksonville’s right tackle was allowed to false start for fun the entire game and I think he got called one time. And just in general it felt like they were throwing flags on every play whether warranted or not.

Final Notes

• I think the defense has played well over the past few weeks but I’m not going to be sold on their improvement until after the bye. Last season’s back-end saw the Seahawks look better defensively when in reality they just played some poor offenses. It’s generally been the same theme over this three-game stretch, with some aid from the rain in the New Orleans contest, but in November they have the Packers and Cardinals back-to-back. There’s a chance Kyler Murray might be out for that game with his ankle injury but I wouldn’t expect him to be. Those are two high-powered offenses at full strength so to me that’s a better measuring stick. I want to be optimistic but I don’t want to fall into the same trap again.
• Hopefully on the other side of it we’ll see Russell Wilson back in action. The playoffs are still unlikely but the NFC is so top-heavy that Seattle could be in the wild card race right to the very end. Their margin for error is so thin though that they really cannot afford many more losses.
• It’s good to be doing Enemy Reaction again. Look for it on Wednesday and then otherwise enjoy the bye week.